China has no intention of capping its greenhouse gas emissions even as authorities are committed to realizing the nation's target to reduce carbon intensity through new policies and measures, the country's top climate change negotiators said yesterday. The negotiators also warned that rich and developing countries have little hope of overcoming key disagreements over how to fight global warming. China "could not and should not" set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current phase, said Su Wei, the chief negotiator of China for climate change talks in Copenhagen, at a meeting in Beijing on China's climate change policies in the post-Copenhagen era.
China has no intention of capping its greenhouse gas emissions even as authorities are committed to realizing the nation's target to reduce carbon intensity through new policies and measures, the country's top climate change negotiators said yesterday.
The negotiators also warned that rich and developing countries have little hope of overcoming key disagreements over how to fight global warming.
!ADVERTISEMENT!
China "could not and should not" set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current phase, said Su Wei, the chief negotiator of China for climate change talks in Copenhagen, at a meeting in Beijing on China's climate change policies in the post-Copenhagen era.
Su, who is also director of the department of combating climate change under the National Development and Reform Commission, said that China's greenhouse gas emissions have to grow correspondingly as the country still has a long way to go in improving people's livelihoods and eradicating poverty.
The country's carbon dioxide emissions per capita is also relatively low compared to developed countries and China has not contributed much to climate change because of its short history as an industrial nation, he said.
However, China will spare no effort to adopt proactive measures to fight the negative effects caused by global warming and achieve the country's ambitious goal of cutting carbon intensity per GDP unit by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, a voluntary target China pledged last November, he said.
"The targets for carbon intensity reduction will be included in the 12th and 13th five-year plans (2011-15; 2016-20) as a binding index," he said.
The targets remain a very challenging task for China, as its secondary industry comprises a large part of the country's industrial structure, said Ma Zhong, a professor at the Renmin University of China.
Article continues: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-02/25/content_9499066.htm
